Make the above shell script executable and pass in the parameter of the downloaded .app and the output dmg.

Once you’ve done this use Disk Utility – Convert Image to DVD/CDR Master (it will have a .cdr extension but it’s an ISO) then rename the cdr to iso

Mount it in vmware and boot. It’ll boot properly now.

It didn’t see my vmware disk.. but you can launch Disk Utility within the OSX installer. From here, you can partition the virtual disk with a Journaled Mac OS filesystem. The installer will be able to continue.

Once finally into OSX, install vmware tools as normal and update OSX.

FYI, I’m doing this on a Mac Mini – for licensing compliance reasons. I haven’t tried it on regular ESXi hypervisor.